Anyone in a situation unemployment, long-term illness or emigration can pass to cancel in advance the contract with a telecommunications company, no additional costs, even if you are still in the loyalty period. The information is contained in the new electronic communications law, a text to which Dinheiro Vivo had access.
The newspaper advances this Monday that the new law is closed and that it will have already been approved in Parliament – only the enactment of Belém is missing.
According to this new legislation, telecommunications service operators cannot “require the consumer who is the holder of the contract to pay any charge related to the breach of the loyalty period” in the event of “unemployment”, if at the origin of the cancellation of the contract it’s found. a “dismissal at the initiative of the employer for an act not attributable to the worker” and that this “involves the loss of the consumer’s disposable monthly income”, cites Dinheiro Vivo.
The text of the electronic communications law also establishes that “Permanent or temporary incapacity for work of more than 60 days” of the contract holder, “that is, in case of illness”, which implies “loss of monthly disposable income of the consumer” will allow the contract with an operator to be terminated when the loyalty period ends.
In both situations, the loss of income must be “equal to or greater than 20%”being calculated “by comparing the sum of the consumer’s income in the month” with the change in situation.
Cases in which there is an “unpredictable change of permanent residence” of the contract holder outside Portugal -emigration situation- or in which there is a “change of permanent residence of the consumer, if the company cannot guarantee the provision of the contracted service or equivalent service, particularly in terms of characteristics and price, at the new address” may also give access to the termination of the contract free of charge.
The caveat is that, in any case, the client must notify the operator by means of “written communication, including by email”, with a “minimum” advance notice of 30 days. It will also be necessary to justify the reason for the termination of the contract.
The new law may also result in cheaper terminations, even if they are not in the scenarios described above. Anyone who wants to terminate a contract without legal reason can do so, the rule being that the customer will not pay more than 50% of the remaining amount of the loyalty period. Dinheiro Vivo affirms that this calculation will depend on whether it is a first contract or a subsequent loyalty and whether or not there was a change in the cable circuit that connects the equipment to the operator’s network.
The issue of loyalty in telecommunications has been giving people a lot to talk about. At the beginning of July, João Cadete de Matos, leader of Anacom, lamented in Parliament that the loyalty scheme in telecommunications continues to limit the choices of consumers. At the time, the head of the communications regulator in Portugal shared that terminating a contract early could cost a thousand euros.
Anacom regrets that loyalty in telecommunications harms consumers. Terminating contracts early can cost 1,000 euros
Source: Observadora
